


Memory of Snow

by PermianExtinction



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hermit Kylo, M/M, Only slightly shippy, Post-Canon, Vague Allusions to a Good Guy Victory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 11:46:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11103927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PermianExtinction/pseuds/PermianExtinction
Summary: Three years after the defeat of the Order, Kylo Ren finds that his secluded cabin has an improbable intruder.





	Memory of Snow

The Northern hemisphere of Alvir II was blanketed in snow half of the year. 

The world had useful features, such as its remoteness, its hospitable but not desirable climates, and its disinterested locals. They were alien, white-furred and stocky in the northern region, well-adapted to the long winters. While they knew of other systems, and some did travel the stars, they did not believe in the importance of a galactic government. The cycles of nature were sacred to them, and they held no other laws in high regard.

The identity of the human man who had come to reside in the mountains beyond the valley village was of no concern to them. If they had known, they would have said, as they did, “Past is past.”

Past was past, yes, but the snow in particular brought back memories. It felt, to the man who had been Ben, who had been Kylo, who had been son and apprentice and commander and Knight and satisfied with none of these, like you could see another world, a familiar world, reflected in each flake if you looked close enough. Sometimes he thought he did. 

He thought that the man fixing himself a bowl of cereal in the tiny slice of the hovel dedicated to meals was that sort of vision, too. Because the former general was dressed as he always was, in that familiar charcoal gray uniform, gaberwool coat slung over his shoulders. His red hair was still combed, his chin still hairless. 

Of course, General Hux had died when the First Order fell. And if he were truly alive, he would not look as if the years had not passed. And even if he did, he would not be huddled by Kylo’s wood stove mixing lyat milk into a bowl of cereal. 

His spoon clinked against the table as he set it down. “Ren. You’ve returned, at last.”

A clear, crisp, vivid voice. It sounded real. Kylo backed up a step, swallowing. 

“I managed to decipher from one of those beasts down in the valley that you hunt for a living. But you seem to have come back empty-handed. A shame.”

When he re-examined Hux, the man didn’t seem like a vision. A slew of imperfections jumped out that Kylo had somehow missed the first time around. There _was_ a touch of stubble on the man’s cheeks, in patches, like he had shaved recently, but hurriedly. Those same cheeks had sunken, and the skin under his eyes had darkened. His outfit was worn, frayed at the edges, the color fading. His hair wasn’t perfectly combed; it was simply pretending to be. It looked smooth because it was damp, but there were disobedient flyaway strands in the places where it was drying. There was a long tear in his coat; one of his boots had broken at the toe. 

“You…” Kylo began. He couldn’t say anything else. “… _you_.” 

Hux offered a tight-lipped little smile. “Surprised? It wasn’t easy to track you down, but I managed nonetheless.” 

“It might have occurred to you that I was making myself scarce for a reason,” Kylo muttered. 

Stirring his spoon through the bowl of cereal, Hux shrugged. “We’ve all had to lay low for a while.”

“And who is ‘we’?”

Hux’s eyes didn’t focus right for a moment. He was looking over Kylo’s shoulder, at an empty point of air. Then he snapped, “ _We_ is the First Order, Ren. I hope your isolation hasn’t made you complacent.”

Clenching his jaw, Kylo stepped further into the room, shedding his snow-crusted outer coat. “I don’t… want to hear about this.” The fact that Hux really was alive, that he was sitting in this house, was settling in like a stone in Kylo’s stomach. As he struggled with his boots, the sound of Hux slurping up a mouthful of cereal ignited a flaring anger. “You know, I won’t have enough food stored for the winter if you eat it all up.”

“Forget the winter,” Hux declared, his voice rising in pitch. “Forget this planet. We’ve scattered ourselves long enough for the New Republic to be fooled. Now is the time to regroup.”

“The New Republic isn’t being _fooled_!” Kylo exploded, hurling one of his boots clear across the room. It left a snowy splotch where it struck the wall. “The Order is gone!” 

Hux’s expression soured, but his voice still had that arrogant lilt. “I should have expected a tantrum from you.”

“This isn’t a—this is my damn house! And you’ve just barged in like you own the place—”

“Why must you be so _difficult_ , Ren?”

“Who wouldn’t be angry? You faked your death for three years and now… now you’re here, eating all of my cereal!” Kylo curled his fists, clenching hard, until his fingers hurt. “You and I have no business with each other.”

The skeptical upward arch of Hux’s right eyebrow seemed like it might be a precursor to something more explosive, like the hissing spark of a fuse. But that spark fizzed out, the man’s expression returning to a neutral state. “You’ll take your time,” Hux said, looking down at his bowl and dipping the spoon in. “But you’ll see eventually.”

No spite, no vitriol. Kylo’s own anger melted as the snow shell around his trousers did, and it left the same soggy discomfort. 

He took a seat, unable to find words. At first he thought that Hux might say more, but the former general continued eating at a measured but unflinchingly steady pace. His eyes had taken on that slightly glazed affect once again. This wasn’t a leisurely meal; he might as well have been wolfing it down, but in exaggeratedly slow motion to conceal his hunger.

“How long since you last ate?” asked Kylo, his tone painfully casual.

“I have no interest in making small talk,” Hux retorted. 

With a soft _hrmph_ , Kylo settled back against the wall, crossing his arms. From behind this wary barrier, he continued observing the intruder in his home. 

General Hux had been on board the _Finalizer_ when the Resistance had made its last push against the First Order. The flagship star destroyer, pride of the fleet, had broken apart, fires blooming from the superheated air that was venting into the vacuum of space. If there had been any escape pods jettisoned, they would surely have been spotted by the enemy’s scanners.

“How…?” Kylo began again, and waited for Hux to object. The man’s shoulders stiffened a bit, but he did not respond, and Kylo continued. “How did you survive?” 

“If you must know… Obviously, when a ship is destroyed, it is not vaporized; sections of the hull always remain intact, even pressurized. Freezing and suffocation are likely to kill anyone who takes refuge in these safer zones, but I lasted long enough for the scavengers to arrive. Several days, it must have been.”

“And when the scavengers did arrive?” 

“I relieved them of command of their ship. Forcefully.”

“Hm,” said Kylo. Not exactly approval, or dismissal. 

“And I continued to survive from that point on. I see no reason to share the details. All that matters is that my patience through that time has paid off.”

Hux was gesticulating with his spoon, but he hadn’t turned his head away from the bowl. It gave the impression that he was speaking to himself, in an empty room. When Kylo stood up, the floorboards creaking under his footfalls, Hux’s eyes darted his way as if startled by his physical presence, despite them being in the middle of conversation.

“Finding me, that was your payoff?” Kylo approached, face twisted with the sort of disgusted scowl he had hidden behind his mask whenever Hux tried to impose himself on the Master of the Knights of Ren –whenever the general got it into his head that they were collaborators, co-commanders, equals. Even if he’d been right about that then, it didn’t matter now. “You should prepare to be disappointed.”

“I always do, with you,” Hux muttered. 

Kylo’s hand snatched up the lapel of Hux’s worn-out uniform and shoved him against the wall. “Careful what you say, _Hux_ ,” he growled. “There’s no Supreme Leader to go running to anymore.”

Undeterred, though anger was finally settling into his features, Hux snapped, “And what is that supposed to mean? You mean to imply that Leader Snoke _ever_ took my side over yours?”

“He let you live,” Kylo stated coldly. 

Hux said nothing, but there was mere exasperation creasing his brow. Not fear, not even apprehension. Kylo remembered how he used to be irritated by that brazenness. But now it seemed like there was a mechanism inside Hux, an interface between him and reality, which just wasn’t working properly. 

A lot of what Kylo was seeing gave off that impression. 

“Well, as they say on this world, ‘past is past’,” Kylo told him, pretending to let the frustration go in one heavy exhalation, even forcing his cheek muscles to pull his lips into to some approximation of a perfunctory smile. “No need for us to quarrel. Since I haven’t got anything else to do, I’ll hear you out.” He let Hux go and took a seat next to him on the crude wooden bench. “Tell me what you came here for. I won’t promise anything, but I’ll listen.”

Straightening up, features sculpted with martial haughtiness, a satisfied smile flickering but not staying with his mouth, Hux said, “So soon after their supposed victory, the New Republic has let itself believe that it stands unopposed. But since the war began, we have struck blow after blow against them. We have crippled them.”

His breathing was erratic, Kylo noticed. Hux was inhaling harshly, letting it out too quickly. And there was tightening in the skin around his eyes; he was so tense, but not nervous. Fixated, that was the word, but it was hard to tell on what.

It was hard to forget the almost nonstop stream of holovids Hux had put out in the years of Starkiller’s destruction. _Here’s a man who loves the sound of his own voice_ , Kylo had initially thought, and tried to tune out the broadcasts, but he’d noticed them enough to know that they rarely repeated. 

What did it do to a man to have to speak with conviction every day, without fail?

Hux seemed to have lapsed back into that old routine. “All that we would need now,” he declared, “is one more attack to throw them back into chaos. One more devastating strike against them would begin a chain reaction of destabilization.”

“We don’t have that kind of power,” Kylo cut in. “You haven’t got a second Starkiller in your pocket, have you?” 

“Not in my pocket,” Hux scoffed. He pressed a finger to his temple, tapped, eyebrows curving high on his forehead as if it was an obvious point to make. “In here, Ren. There’s something even greater than Starkiller in the works. I… feel it. I know it.” Suddenly, his teeth were clenched and bared with the fury of a cornered animal. “ _I will not fail!_ ” Hux barked, nostrils flaring.

Kylo opened his mouth to speak and then clamped his lips shut, turning his gaze away. 

Starkiller took a team of engineers to create, banks of computers running simulations, millions of construction droids. Hux had overseen it, true, but he hadn’t created it. He’d contributed a great deal, and had a better grasp of astrophysics than someone like Kylo, but he was an administrator and an officer first. 

But of course he romanticized it. Of course, in his mind, the base had been born from his genius alone. 

“I already have ideas,” Hux said, voice more softened, trying to disguise his outburst. “I just need to let them become… awakened. Of course I’ve had to shelve them over the years. Had to focus on surviving, you know.” He tried to laugh, and it sounded more like a forced cough than anything truly emotive. “Ren. We are on the verge of the most magnificent thing. Vengeance, victory…”

“Say no more.” Kylo reached out and put a hand on Hux’s shoulder. He attempted that awkward smile once again. 

Hux returned it, a faint hope glistening in his eyes. “You… then…” 

“I’m not promising anything,” Kylo repeated. “But the day is nearly done, and you look like you’ve had a long journey. I know it’s a far walk from the valley...”

Hux waved that aside. “I landed my ship not far from here… Though it’s nearly out of fuel. I know that’s in short supply on this planet.” 

“Anything else you need to eat?” 

Hux responded too innocently. “I… If there is anything else. I’m not choosy.”

Kylo had endured all sorts of pests stealing his food stores, from tiny rodents to fanged bears three times his size, but he’d never have guessed one of them would be a First Order officer. Wondering just how much cereal Hux had devoured, he crossed the room to one of the larders. He knew perfectly well what he had stored, and in addition to the cereal there were some strips of smoked meat missing, their absence concealed cunningly, but not cunningly enough. Sighing, he selected one of the smallest remaining slices and carried it back to the table. 

“I’m going to sleep,” he told Hux, slapping the piece of meat down next to the bowl of cereal. “One must rise early to catch the beasts this meat came from. You can settle in too, the spare blankets are that way.” 

The wool-stuffed mattress where Kylo slept sat in the corner, topped by several thickly woven blankets. Kylo lay down and pulled these blankets around him, tugging them tight to fight off the chill. He closed his eyes, but did not relax the rest of his senses. 

He focused, reached into the Force, laid gentle tendrils against the surface of Hux’s mind. Hux did not notice. He used to be more perceptive to such things, Kylo recalled. Back in the old days, any surreptitious attempt he made to probe Hux’s thoughts with the Force was met with an icy wall, and a judgmental glare if Hux was in the same room. Kylo doubted his own technique had improved over the years spent in isolation. It was Hux who had weakened.

Hollow. It was the first word Kylo could think to describe what he found. A hollowness so profound it gave him vertigo, like he was standing over a great chasm. Even the pathetic flickers of willpower that seemed to have carried Hux along to this point were founded in delusion. Kylo retreated slightly from his mental infiltration as Hux finished the last scraps of his meal, and waited for him to find a place to sleep.

Hux did not bother to undress either. Kylo cracked one eye open a bit, watching. The man only removed his coat and boots and laid them on the floor, folding the former delicately, afraid to add even more wrinkles to something clearly so precious. And after he took the blankets and arranged them on the floor into something acceptable to sleep on, he lay on his back, motionless, hands folded over his belt buckle, as if protecting that too. 

In time, the windows darkened with the tail end of twilight, and Hux was still awake. Kylo could sense that the man’s mind was wandering, and once again he intruded with the Force, pressing for any memories that might rise easily to the surface. Hux hadn’t told the full story when he said he had commandeered a scavenging ship. He’d been captured by a small gang of pirates, who had held him for many days, intending to hand him over to the New Republic for the bounty. Not that there had been a bounty out, since it was assumed Hux was dead. But the promise of ill-defined riches had brought strife and the crew had fallen out amongst themselves. In the ensuing chaos, Hux had managed to kill the pirates who hadn’t killed each other and steal their ship.

But at least it hadn’t been a lie. Kylo supposed that Hux’s talk of a new superweapon hadn’t been a lie to Hux’s mind either. He believed, wanted to believe, in that much. There was no Order, however. Over three years, Hux hadn’t been in contact with any significant remnant of the organization. He’d _tried_ to find others, putting himself in unnecessary danger at times. And Kylo Ren hadn’t been his first choice, but he’d been his first real success. 

He had nothing, in other words. He was here because he’d exhausted every other option. One last chance to pretend that the war hadn’t been lost. Hux knew no way of living besides the war. 

Kylo wasn’t going to entertain his fantasy. He had no desire to play pretend, and he didn’t have the energy to untangle Hux’s twisted psyche. Nor did he enjoy the thought of feeding two mouths through the rough winter. 

The room was warm, filled with the scent of sap-rich wood slowly turning to coals. The blankets were softer than anything Hux had slept on in a long while, from what Kylo could sense. Outside, the trees creaked wind caught by their snow-frosted boughs. When Hux drifted off to sleep, it would be peaceful. He even had a full stomach, and hopes that were yet to be crushed. 

So Kylo waited. He didn’t hate Hux. He just didn’t need him.

He woke to a log snapping in the wood stove as it burned. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep like this, and felt a fool for it. During his training as a Jedi and as a Knight of Ren, he’d had to stay awake over countless hours, whether the sun’s rise and fall was visible to mark time or not. In nodding off, he’d failed at something that should have been second nature, and left himself vulnerable. Hux was never a man you would want to drop your guard around, particularly now that he was even more unpredictable than the general Kylo had known. But if he had been fatigued as well, surely he might have slept as Kylo had...

Kylo's eyes flicked open and he saw a bundle of blankets where Hux had laid down to rest. The greatcoat was no longer folded by the side of this nest, and Kylo couldn't spot the man's boots, either. Hux was up and about, for sure. That would make this harder, Kylo thought, but not impossible.

Peeling away layers of wool from around himself, Kylo slipped from his bed and roved his eyes over the room. There was just the faintest glow from the wood stove, highlighting corners and edges with red-orange. Everything else was submerged in darkness. He couldn't sense any life besides himself and the dormant family of vreeliemice that lived under his floorboards. 

Outside, though, yes - there was something. A mind in quiet turmoil, mirroring the muted sounds of a snowstorm. Glancing out a small, fogged-over window, Kylo saw the blur of a dark shape standing motionless on the crest of the hill, facing the slope down into the forest.

With a set jaw, teeth pressing together to hold back a faint chattering, Kylo pulled back a corner of his mattress and tugged a loose wooden board away from the base of the wall. He reached into the hollow behind the board.

It was too dark to see into the hidden compartment, but easy to feel what he was looking for. The metal exterior of the lightsaber hilt was cold to the touch; colder than ice, and it stuck to the skin of his palm.

A lightsaber was supposed to become so familiar to the user that it felt like a part of their own limb, but right now, Kylo was too aware of its weight and texture and temperature, how ungainly and ill-fitting it felt clasped in his hand. He left the room as it was, not bothering to replace the board or hide the hollow, not even bothering to pick up his boots.

At first, the snow felt soft and insubstantial against the soles of his feet, but in seconds the chill began to seep in. He stepped delicately for his size, almost as if the ground could erupt under him if he mislaid a foot. His eyes flicked erratically between the ground and the figure ahead— both shrouded by night, but not invisible. 

Even with the care he was taking to be quiet, it was impossible to muffle every sound. Kylo kept expecting Hux to suddenly spin around and face him. Perhaps, in this darkness, Hux wouldn’t see the object gripped in Kylo’s right hand right away. But it still would be better if there wasn’t even a fraction of a second available to him, in which he might realize what Kylo intended to do. 

If Hux _had_ detected Kylo’s footsteps, if he had indeed turned round, it might have been a sign of instinct and self-preservation. A sign that some primal spark of life lingered in his mind. Kylo drew closer, and became surer that Hux would indeed wake from his apparent trance. But the man stayed motionless, staring out at the forest, the barely distinguishable treetops amid the black. 

If Kylo held the saber right, just behind and below the nape of Hux’s neck, angled upwards, the blade would pierce the man’s spinal column and brain. He’d only have it activated for a moment, he told himself. Just one quick flash of red light, not even enough for the side vents on the crossguard to appear. The body would fall. 

Killing someone took on an entirely new meaning when you’d done it many times before. Lives were made to end, eventually. You could kill in anger or spite, or out of necessity, or out of self-preservation; it wasn’t always a hateful act. 

It could even be kind, couldn’t it? 

He raised his hand slowly.

“The snow,” said Hux, and then the rest of the sentence trailed off. He did not sound like himself, or, at the least, what Kylo was familiar with. But his thought was incomplete, and so Kylo waited just a second more, though he didn’t know why Hux deserved the courtesy.

“Even in this darkness,” he continued distantly, “I know the difference between this world and Starkiller,” Hux’s shoulders had already accumulated a layer of snow, Kylo noticed. So the man had been standing out here for a while.

“I knew,” said Hux, “the instant I woke up. Nothing smelled so rankly of animal musk on the base.”

Kylo didn’t bother taking offense at Hux’s comment; it was true that his cabin was a far cry from the sterile durasteel halls of Starkiller Base. His eyes were fixed on the point at the back of Hux’s neck. It was concealed by an upturned collar, lifted up against the wind, perhaps, and red hair that hadn’t been cut quite short enough. Meager defenses, Kylo thought.

“But I can appreciate this,” Hux went on, his voice lilting and lost. “I want to be reminded of what I accomplished. I can’t forget it. I could _never_ …” It almost sounded like he was about to laugh, bitterly. But he did not laugh. “Forget.”

Kylo had killed people without mercy so many times, he wasn’t sure why this time had to be different. Maybe his hand would have been steadier if he wanted Hux dead for petty, personal reasons. Because the man had treated him with contempt for so many years, for instance.

“But this is…” Still just Hux speaking; Kylo couldn’t find his voice, feared that if he spoke something in tone would expose his intent and Hux would know, would turn and face him with horror and betrayal stretched out over pained features. 

“This is what they had to endure. After the Rebellion stole the galaxy from them… they were humiliated, utterly defeated…”

They? They, not we, we the society, we the Order? No. It was they, because it was personal. It was a generation of forebears.

“If they were tested…” Hux was staring at his gloved hands now, at the fraying holes in the leather. “Then how could I fail where they persevered? What _right…?_ ”

Kylo let his arm drop, returning the saber to his side. 

“What right do I have to be so _weak?_ ”

Hux was almost inaudible, because the wind howled harder for a moment, bending the trees. Kylo found that his own words were lost in the storm, and he stopped at the first syllable. His feet were becoming painfully numb, bare against the snow.

He waited, and in the next lull, cleared his throat.

“You’re not wrong,” Kylo said. 

Hux’s head was still bowed, but his shoulders tightened. 

“This _is_ weakness. All of it.” He thought about his days on this planet, how they kept cycling on, dawn and dusk and waking and sleeping, doing nothing but the bare minimum for survival and comfort. “We wouldn’t be here like this if we were strong.”

“Of course not,” Hux said bitterly. 

“But we’re alive. We managed that much.”

Hux scoffed. “And you think that’s good enough?”

“No. Not anymore.” Kylo gripped his saber handle tighter, as anger rose like bubbling lava. He could just imagine the snowy ground splitting in front of him, as white hot emotion forced it apart. He _did_ hate this existence. He hated that it reminded him of his uncle’s cowardly disappearance — but it turned out he had been pursuing a goal, finding the truth of the Jedi and the Force. Kylo had only been living because he didn’t want to die. 

Because if he did, there would be people waiting for him in the Force that he didn’t want to face. 

“Do you know why we’re still alive, though?” Kylo brushed his finger over the button on the saber. It had been years since he activated it. Suddenly he wasn’t even sure if it still worked.

Finally, Hux turned around. His eyes did jolt down to the weapon in Kylo’s hand, and when his gaze lifted it was angry and accusing. But hesitant, too. 

“Because,” said Kylo, through gritted teeth, “we’re not ready to die yet.”

Hux stared at him, then, lips half parted, like a man shaking off a dream. Kylo saw him breathe in sharply, lungs filling with ice cold air. “We’re not,” he echoed. 

“I’m going back inside,” Kylo added. “I can’t feel my _feet!_ ” The last word came out as an aggrieved snarl, and it broke the tension like the last snowflake landing on a branch before it snaps off.

“Neither can I!” Hux spat out. “ _Hells,_ it’s cold!”

They both looked each other in the eye, and then rushed off towards the cabin, half-running by the time they reached it, shoving each other’s shoulders in an attempt to be the first one inside. But when they huddled by the stove, Kylo furiously stoking the coals into a blaze, it felt less like they were pushing each other away and more like they were joined together, pulling each other forward, closer and closer to that simple, perfect flame. 


End file.
